Ubuntu Tricks

Ubuntu

Enable Repositories

You can turn on more repositories of programs and packages. These let you install more software on your computer. Run "Add Applications". This is in the bottom of the Programs menu in Gnome, and under the Utilities menu in KDE.

Open the Settings->Repositories menu.
Click on "Add". Select Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger"
Mark all the checkboxes. Click Ok.
Click on "Add". Select Ubuntu 5.10 Security Updates
Mark all the checkboxes. Click Ok.
Click on "Add". Select Ubuntu 5.10 Updates
Mark all the checkboxes. Click Ok.
Click Ok.

Menus

Kubuntu

Install Kubuntu

Install

Installing Kubuntu will add the K Desktop Environment (KDE), and a bunch of basic programs. It will not replace your Gnome desktop, it only provides an alternative. There are two methods of installing packages like this:

Command Line

Open a command prompt, in Gnome you can find one called "Terminal" in the "Utilities" menu. Type the following: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop. Enter your password and press enter. A prompt should appear asking if you really want to install all this stuff; type Y and press enter.

Package Manager

I usually only use a package manager when looking for packages I want, which is most of the time. If I know the name of the package it is much easier to install it from the command line. In the system or settings menu (the right one on the top) find Synaptic Package Manager. Search for the package named kubuntu-desktop, right click, select mark for installation. Click on Apply in the toolbar. Answer yes to all the questions about whether you really want to install it.

Switch to KDE

In the right menu at the top of the screen select log out. This takes you back to the login screen. Click on the session button and select KDE. Enter your username and password. The login manager will ask if you want this to be your default session type; select yes.

KDE

Double Click to Open Files

The first thing you'll want to do is get rid of that annoying single click opens files business. I don't understand this behavior; how are you going to select files if clicking on them opens them?

Click on the K in the lower left corner of the screen. Select the System Settings menu item. This opens KDE's settings. Under hardware click on Mouse. There is a section labeled Icons, in which Single-click to open files and folders is marked. Mark Double-click instead. Click on the Apply button. Close the System Settings program.

If you have already switched to using control center instead of system settings you can use it instead.

List Menu Items By Name

Menu items are listed by description by default. This is stupid. Right click on the panel (the bar at the bottom of the screen) and select Configure Panel or Panel Menu->Configure panel depending on which one is available. Open the Menus tab. Change Menu item format from Description (Name) to Name (Description). Click on Ok.

Get the Debian Menus

This isn't specific to just KDE. The Debian Menus list all of the programs installed on your computer, and are fairly well organized. They are great for finding programs you haven't used, and mining for shortcuts to put in other menus. To get them install the menu and menu-xdg packages. You will need to have already enabled the extra repositories in the first section.

Open a command prompt; you can do this by opening K Menu->System-Konsole. Type the following in the prompt, entering your password and Y where appropriate:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install menu menu-xdg
update-menus

Make System Settings work nicely

The default System Settings behavior is annoying. There are three things you can do about it.

Use Settings Instead

In the System Menu select settings. If you have removed it from your panel you can add it to the K Menu by right clicking on the panel, selecting Configure Panel, and in the Menus tab, under Optional Menus check System and click Ok.

Use Kcontrol Instead

Kcontrol has the same components, listed differently. You can find it under Debian->Apps->System->Kcontrol. There are two ways to add it to your menus:

You can right click on the K menu and select menu editor and copy kcontrol from the debian menus into the main menu; you may also want to move System Settings elsewhere.
You can also enable the preferences submenu; right click on the panel and under Panel Configuration in the Menus tab under Optional Menus check the box next to Preferences. This enables a menu that contains not only a link to KControl, but also to all the settings applets individually.

Make the applets open in new windows

Right click on the K menu and select menu editor. Click on System Settings at the bottom of this new window. Change the command from systemsettings -caption "%c" %i %m to systemsettings --noembed -caption "%c" %i %m. Click on the Save button. Quit.

Get shutdown buttons in KDE, login automatically

These commands make KDE your default desktop so that auto-login will get you to the right place and use KDM as the login manager so that shutdown buttons show up in KDE. Open a terminal and copy and paste the following commands. Press Enter. Enter your password when prompted.

echo startkde > .xsession
sudo bash -c "echo /usr/bin/kdm > /etc/X11/default-display-manager"

Open the KDE control center and under System Administration open Login Manager. Click the button to enter Administrator Mode; the border should turn red. Under the Convenience tab mark the checkbox for "Enable Auto-login". Click Apply. Close the window.

You will be automatically logged in to KDE the next time your computer boots. Starting with that session the shutdown buttons will work when you pick Log out...

Different Taskbars for Different Desktops

My taskbar gets very cluttered with many programs open. Opening programs on different desktops keeps the windows uncluttered, and it will keep your taskbar uncluttered to. Right click on the panel and select configure panel. Click on the big blue taskbar button on the left. Unmark "Show windows from all desktops" and click Ok.

Konqueror

Konqueror's default behavior is to try to make the file manager behave like a web browser. This is kind of annoying, and makes file management type stuff hard. I recommend making all of these changes to Konqueror's settings:

Open a Konqueror window by opening your home directory in the System Places menu (the one next to the K Menu).
Select the Settings-Configure Konqueror menu item.
1. Under Behavior, in Misc. Options, check both "Open folders in a separate window" and "Show network operations in a single window". This will make folders opened in Konqueror open in new tabs instead of replacing the folder you were looking at. The network operations thing keeps windows less cluttered when moving files around.
2. Under Appearance uncheck Underline filenames.
3. Under Web Behavior, in Tabbed browsing, open Advanced Options. Uncheck "Open as tab in existing konqueror when URL is called externally". Click Ok. This keeps web pages and folders from ending up in the same konqueror window, which is awkward. You might want to uncheck the "Open new tabs in the background" option if you are annoyed or confused when opening a folder doesn't make it show up.
Click Ok to close and keep your new Konqueror settings.

Now we'll arrange the window in a more usable manner.

Press F9 to make the directory tree visible.
In the Settings->Toolbars menu check Main Toolbar.
In the Settings->Toolbars menu check Extra Toolbar.
Arrange the Toolbars in a pleasing manner. I like Main first, then extra, then the location bar on the next line.
Select Settings->Save Kubuntu File Manager profile. Click Save.

GRUB

You might not want Ubuntu to always boot as default. If so you'll probably want to do two things: Make the previous operating system boot by default and make the boot screen pretty so you'll notice it. Steps marked with an * can be omitted if you don't want the pretty boot screen.

Download the splash image, butte-splash-gimp.xpm.gz, and save it in your home directory.
Open up a console.
Run each of these commands to make the folder for images and copy the image there:
```
sudo mkdir /boot/grub/images/
sudo cp butte-splash-gimp.xpm.gz /boot/grub/images/
```
Open up the GRUB configuration file in a text editor: kdesu kate /boot/grub/menu.lst
Find this line; it's right at the top:
```
default		0
```
Replace it with
```
default		saved
```

Add the following lines just after this line to use the pretty boot screen:

foreground	FFFFFF
background	336699
splashimage (hd1,0)/boot/grub/images/butte-splash-gimp.xpm.gz

Change the (hd1,0) part to the drive Ubuntu is installed on. (hd0,0) is first hard drive first partition, (hd0,1) is first hard drive, second partition, (hd1,0) is second hard drive, first partition. If you arn't sure you can look further down in the file for the root lines used in the Ubuntu boot options. Those are the drive and partition that Ubuntu is on.

It should now look something like this:

...
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.           
default		saved
foreground	FFFFFF
background	336699
splashimage (hd1,0)/boot/grub/images/butte-splash-gimp.xpm.gz

## timeout sec
...

Save the file and close the text editor.

The bootloader will now remember which operating system you used last and boot it by default. The bootloader will be pretty and hopefully attention catching.

xscreensaver

The kde screensaver module is broken and annoying in many ways, especially if you want to use your own pictures for the screensavers or want to select only some of the screensavers for random display. The original xscreensaver system is much nicer. Here's how to switch:

Switch off the KDE screensaver. Open your KDE settings and select the "Look and Feel" "Screensaver" page. Turn off the ``Enable Screensaver'' checkbox.
Download this file. Save it in your home directory.
Open up a console. Type bash xscreen and press enter. When it asks you for your password enter it.
The xscreensaver settings will open and warn you that it's not currently running. Click Ok to start it for this session. You can change settings right here.

You can get back to the settings in the K menu under Debian->Screen->Save->ScreenSaver Preferences. You can use a menu editor to copy this somewhere else too.

Using your own images for the screensaver.

In the Advanced tab in screensaver settings check the "Choose Random Image" box. Browse and select the directory your pictures are in.

If you are displaying images you may want to set Cycle After to a low number, like 1 or 2 minutes, so that the effects change frequently. Many of the screensavers have their own settings for how frequently they loadi images; a few use the same image for the entire duration. The following screensavers use your pictures:

AntSpotlight
BlitSpin
Bumps - used for a bumpmap, image is pretty destroyed.
Carousel
DecayScreen
Distort
Flipscreen3d
GFlux (grab)
GLEidescope
GLSlideshow
MirrorBlob
Ripples (desktop)
RotZoomer
RotZoomer (mobile)
RotZoomer (sweep)
SlideScreen
Spotlight
Twang
XTeeVee
Zoom (Fatbits)
Zoom (Lenses)

Suggested Software

Get as much of the Restricted Format programs as you can.

I recommend installing the following packages:

gnucash: Double entry bookkeeping accounting software. Absolutely excellent. Do your books this way. Menu item will be in Debian->Apps->Tools which is annoying, copy it somewhere more accessible.
celestia: Like a planetarium, but more like a 3d tour of the solar system and beyond. there are amazing textures for celestia on the internet. Only get this if you have a good graphics card.
kde: An easy way to get all of the official KDE programs. Kubuntu already got most of these, but it'll add more games, artwork, educational programs, accessibility programs. It'll also install kdevelop and a couple other programs that aren't of general interest, but it's much easier than going through and selecting most of these packages individually. If you don't want the whole shebang search for packages with names containing kde, and just select those describing the fields that are of interest to you. It's a 115 MB download, and takes up another 350 MB of disk space.
gimp-data-extras, gimp-texturize: More brushes, gradients, palettes, and textures for the gimp.
ogle, okle: DVD players for Gnome and KDE. Both are nice
frozen-bubble: One of the best video games ever
lbreakout2: One of the prettiest video games ever

The following packages are worth noting:

wine: Runs lots of windows programs very well, just not the ones I like. Somewhat difficult to figure out how to use.
festival: Text to speech converter. Needed for KDE text to speech system to work. Still fairly primitive

Unauthenticated Packages

If Synaptic says packages are unauthenticated, or for some other reason just doesn't work or warns you of something when it starts up click on the big reload button in the left part of the toolbar.

Links

These pages are helpful to some degree or another

David Martin's Steps Another list of things someone likes to do when installing Ubuntu. His are for gnome, but include useful tidbits like NVidia drivers and relocating home partitions.